


white lies

by crickets



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-28
Updated: 2011-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets





	white lies

After graduation, after the threat of Klaus and that damn moonstone are gone, she packs her bags and throws them into the trunk of her car. With Tyler back in town, she doesn't want to spend an entire summer skulking around Mystic Falls trying to avoid him. It's just better this way. She's still angry with him, and every time he sees her, he looks at her with such an earnestness that she can't decide between suggesting he hang out with Stefan some more, or punching him in the face.

It's not that she doesn't understand, or that she doesn't want to cut him some slack, it's just that too much has happened and she's not ready yet -- not ready for the questions that come afterward.

She tells her mom that she's staying with her father and Steven for the summer and compels her not to bother calling to check up on her. Stefan's warned her about using her powers "for good instead of evil" and all of that, but he didn't really offer up any advice on white lies _exactly_ , so she allows herself the privilege.

 _Just this once_.

She says goodbye to Elena and the gang over dinner at the grill and can feel Tyler's dark eyes boring into her from across the room.

\--

She is _furious_ when he tracks her down three weeks in.

The two meet in the hallway of her hotel, and Caroline stands with arms crossed, one foot tapping, a scowl on her face. They argue, and it isn't long before they have an unwanted audience.

Caroline grabs Tyler's arm and drags him into her room a little bit rougher than she probably should, slamming the door behind them.

"So what? You think you can just come here and? I don't know, _make me_ forgive you or something?" Caroline continues her tirade from the hall.

"I don't know," Tyler flusters, and Caroline flashes back to the first [and only] night he kissed her when a similar look of confusion spreads across his face. "I don't know what I thought, Caroline." Tyler throws up his hands. "I guess I thought maybe we could talk."

Caroline lets out a sound that can only be described as a growl. "Ugh! You just," she shoves him, _hard_. Tyler's hip clips the end of the dresser and he takes a few steadying steps backward until his back is against the wall. "You make me so mad!" She continues, closing in on him as she talks.

Caroline raises and open palm and Tyler flinches, steeling himself for the blow. But Caroline doesn't hit him, instead she grabs the back of his neck, pulling him forward and crushing their mouths together.

 

 **TWO**.  
They keep the two of them a secret.

Caroline finds it exciting, but Tyler, who is all-too used to dirty little secrets, just wants to hold her hand in front of all their friends. To kiss her open and in public, under the hot Mystic Falls sun. For now, they fuck in bathrooms and storage closets, rarely in their own beds when nobody is at home. But eventually they don't even bother to exit at different times, and their secret is not long for the world.

"You're _sleeping together_!" Bonnie is the first one to say it.

"What? No!" Caroline replies. "What?"

Two hours later, a consensus has been reached, and Caroline blushes her confession.

Later that night, Tyler drags her back to his new apartment, the boxes still not unpacked. He takes her rough, not holding back his full strength, and his eyes go yellow when he comes, shouting her name. Caroline can't keep her fangs at bay, and she bites into his shoulder when he brings her over. After, a breathless euphoria overcoming them both, Caroline wonders out loud why they hadn't told anyone sooner.

 _Tyler growls_.

Caroline laughs.

 

 **THREE**.  
The first time she touches herself, she is thinking of Tyler.

She doesn't really remember when exactly it happened, but she knows that having a crush on Tyler Lockwood probably isn't all that rare of an occurrence in Mystic Falls. He sits in front of her in class, and she remembers staring at the nape of his neck, the muscles in his arms and back through his thin T-shirt. The class is right before the end of the day and Caroline has plenty of time to think about him on the way home from school where she'll have the house to herself for a few precious hours.

She doesn't ever admit this to him, that technically speaking, Tyler Lockwood was the first person to ever make her come, without even being in the room, soaking through her pink cotton panties with the little bow on the front.

 _They were her favorite pair._

"What are you thinking about?" he asks her this whenever her gaze drifts toward the sky.

"Nothing," she says, grins. "Nothing at all."

 

 **FOUR**.  
Tyler doesn't talk about his father. _Not usually_. But with Caroline things are easy, and he feels like in some ways she might understand. He tries to recall every instance where his father, the good Mayor Lockwood, laid a hand on him. He remembers when he turned sixteen and he started fighting back.

 _He missed three days of school that week._

"God, Tyler," Caroline says after a while. "That is awful. I am so, _so_ , sorry you had to go through that."

But he made it through, he tells her. And he wonders if the sleeping wolf inside his father didn't have anything to do with his aggression. He wonders if it had anything to do with his own. He tells her how Matt was always there for him, even when he was being a jerk, says how much he misses that -- his old friend.

"I miss him too," Caroline whispers, her lips grazing his ear.

Tyler catches her mouth in his with a gentleness that belies the monster inside him.

 

 **FIVE**.  
Tyler searches for a cure.

This is _just in case_. This is for her protection. He tries to push her away once, to tell her it wasn't going to work. But Caroline is a stubborn thing, and she isn't having any of it. In the end, he relents, admits both to himself and to her, that he'd never forgive himself if he just walked away -- if he never even gave them a chance.

 _They deserve to be happy._

He knows that.

Caroline doesn't know what he's up to, but she suspects -- secret meetings with Bonnie, shared looks of concern between the witch and the werewolf, the way Tyler's nose is always buried in a book of spells.

There's a witch on the other side of the country and Tyler disappears for a few days, returning with a small packet of seeds and a weathered blank page torn out of a grimoire, instructions scribbled in fresh ink. He realizes, even when the old woman had handed him this bit of magic, that there would be no way to test this theory, but for now he feels it is a small victory, one worth all of the time and effort he put into it.

He won't stop looking, that much he knows. The word of a lone old witch with shallow pockets will not be enough to hinge Caroline's life on. _No_. He'll keep looking until he has every last rumored, mythical cure in his possession.

He can hear Caroline from the kitchen, filling him in on everything he's missed while he was away. He tosses his duffel on the bed, shrugs off his jacket, mumbles "uh huh," where appropriate, and kneels down next to his side of the bed. He stashes the treasure beneath a loose floorboard, an old trick of his father's.

 _For a rainy day._

 _-fin_


End file.
